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fandomhigh2006-09-19 10:10 am
tricksy-spy.livejournal.com) wrote in fandomhigh2006-09-19 10:10 am
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Through a Glass Darkly: Spies and Spying; 3rd Period
Aly nodded to the students in welcome as they all came into her classroom 3rd Period. She'd picked up some coffee and pastries from J, GOB for the class and had laid them out on one of the front desks for the students to pick up.
"Good morning all," she said with a smile. "I'm going to actually lecture a bit today so make sure you have coffee and donuts."
"Right then. Unsurprisingly? The origins of espionage in this world are a bit difficult to determine. For some reason -" she grinned "-no one really liked to write down or tell stories about the heroic adventures of spies like they do great heroes or warriors. We can assume that from the very beginning, travelers, diplomats, and traders acted as spies of a sort - sending back information about a new place to their homeland but relying on just that didn't particularly help countries find out each other's secrets or plans.
"So. In China, about 2500 years ago, a pretty wise man named Sun Tzu wrote The Art of War. And that was one of the first places that a philosophy of espionage and an understanding of the immense value of information were written down. To quote:
'The enemy must not know where I intend to give battle. For if he does not know where I intend to give battle, he must prepare in a great many places. And when he prepares in a great many places, those I have to fight in any one place will be few. And when he prepares everywhere, he will be weak everywhere.'
"The best way to defeat an enemy is to avoid battle altogether and to use deception and clever manuevers to confuse and distract him." Aly held her hands out palms up. "There is nothing about that statement that I can disagree with. He thought knowledge and secret operations were 'essential in war...an army without secret agents is exactly like a man without eyes or ears.' And what I'd add to that is simply the word government. 'An army or government without secret agents is exactly like a man without eyes or ears.' If you can't predict how your enemy - or your friend - is likely to react in a given situation, you don't have enough information. That's all there is to it."
She grinned. "I rather like this Sun Tzu. If you've not read his Art of War yet, I suggest you do so. It's not an assignment for this class, but I'll be referring to him again."
"In another part of the world - Greece and Rome - other tools of espionage were being developed. One - the Scytale was developed by the Spartans to pass information on the battlefield quickly but still protected from the opposing forces. For this they used a cylindrical tool to perform what's called a transposition cipher." She handed out a paper showing a diagram of the scytale and how it worked. "It's an interesting - if simple - idea that can prevent your information from falling into the hands of the enemy. Which should always be one's first priority."
"Another simple cipher is what's know as Caesar's alphabet. It's a fairly simple, but useful, substitution cipher. All you do is shift the letters in your message three spots down the alphabet. So D for A, E for B, etc." She grinned and looked at them. "The problem with this one? It's so very simple that the longer the message is, the easier to decode the cipher. It's still useful though and a big advancement at the time."
"Very well then, that's my lecture for the day. Any questions?" She went through to answer them all before continuing. "What I'd like to have happen now is for you to tell me how you practiced the guidelines I set out for you last week and also if anyone still remembers that list of words? I'd like to hear it. And finally, pair up with a partner and work out a simple message in Caesar's alphabet for him or her to read then discuss how you would go about breaking such an encryption.
"And second to last, would Maia Rutledge and Jim Ellison see me after class or stop by my office hours? Finally, I want you to keep practicing the guidelines and working on improving your memory during the next week. If you have any questions about it, you know where to find me."
[OOC: Major love and thanks to Hidden Secrets: A Complete History of Espionage and the Technology Used to Support It by David Owen. There's a nifty little encryptor here to make your lives easier unless you want to figure out the letter shifts. In which case. You're very, very cool.Wait for the OCD is up yay!]
"Good morning all," she said with a smile. "I'm going to actually lecture a bit today so make sure you have coffee and donuts."
"Right then. Unsurprisingly? The origins of espionage in this world are a bit difficult to determine. For some reason -" she grinned "-no one really liked to write down or tell stories about the heroic adventures of spies like they do great heroes or warriors. We can assume that from the very beginning, travelers, diplomats, and traders acted as spies of a sort - sending back information about a new place to their homeland but relying on just that didn't particularly help countries find out each other's secrets or plans.
"So. In China, about 2500 years ago, a pretty wise man named Sun Tzu wrote The Art of War. And that was one of the first places that a philosophy of espionage and an understanding of the immense value of information were written down. To quote:
'The enemy must not know where I intend to give battle. For if he does not know where I intend to give battle, he must prepare in a great many places. And when he prepares in a great many places, those I have to fight in any one place will be few. And when he prepares everywhere, he will be weak everywhere.'
"The best way to defeat an enemy is to avoid battle altogether and to use deception and clever manuevers to confuse and distract him." Aly held her hands out palms up. "There is nothing about that statement that I can disagree with. He thought knowledge and secret operations were 'essential in war...an army without secret agents is exactly like a man without eyes or ears.' And what I'd add to that is simply the word government. 'An army or government without secret agents is exactly like a man without eyes or ears.' If you can't predict how your enemy - or your friend - is likely to react in a given situation, you don't have enough information. That's all there is to it."
She grinned. "I rather like this Sun Tzu. If you've not read his Art of War yet, I suggest you do so. It's not an assignment for this class, but I'll be referring to him again."
"In another part of the world - Greece and Rome - other tools of espionage were being developed. One - the Scytale was developed by the Spartans to pass information on the battlefield quickly but still protected from the opposing forces. For this they used a cylindrical tool to perform what's called a transposition cipher." She handed out a paper showing a diagram of the scytale and how it worked. "It's an interesting - if simple - idea that can prevent your information from falling into the hands of the enemy. Which should always be one's first priority."
"Another simple cipher is what's know as Caesar's alphabet. It's a fairly simple, but useful, substitution cipher. All you do is shift the letters in your message three spots down the alphabet. So D for A, E for B, etc." She grinned and looked at them. "The problem with this one? It's so very simple that the longer the message is, the easier to decode the cipher. It's still useful though and a big advancement at the time."
"Very well then, that's my lecture for the day. Any questions?" She went through to answer them all before continuing. "What I'd like to have happen now is for you to tell me how you practiced the guidelines I set out for you last week and also if anyone still remembers that list of words? I'd like to hear it. And finally, pair up with a partner and work out a simple message in Caesar's alphabet for him or her to read then discuss how you would go about breaking such an encryption.
"And second to last, would Maia Rutledge and Jim Ellison see me after class or stop by my office hours? Finally, I want you to keep practicing the guidelines and working on improving your memory during the next week. If you have any questions about it, you know where to find me."
[OOC: Major love and thanks to Hidden Secrets: A Complete History of Espionage and the Technology Used to Support It by David Owen. There's a nifty little encryptor here to make your lives easier unless you want to figure out the letter shifts. In which case. You're very, very cool.
Re: SAS: Partner Up 9/19